Saturday, 12 February 2011

It's that time again, and a large chunk of the emerging musical community is currently in a mild state of panic trying to fill in the epic 53 question Red Bull Music Academy application in hopes of making it to Tokyo this October. The video RBMA put together is fantastic, but I thought I'd ask a few of the past participants if they could add any extra words of advice.

A couple of my thoughts -
The first page looks relatively easy but Question 7 "This is where I am in relation to the musical universe« Please draw us a map!" might be a bit daunting - start with the chunky questions you feel confident about answering first and once your form filling juices are going get on to the tougher questions, you don't have to go through it in order. You might just be Googled - what comes up (something to bear in mind anyway!)? Is the first result a Myspace page you haven't updated in 5 years? Sort it out. *How to post coming soon. It's an amazing opportunity, but if you don't get in are you proactively trying to line up other exciting opportunities off your own back so that you'll be ok either way? Personally, that's the kind of participant I would want to pick.

Oddisee -
The RMBA application is one of the few tests in life you'll actually enjoy taking. Give your self lots of time to fill the application out. It's designed to reveal who you are & what your music is about to the academy, you wouldn't want to cram that into an evening. Don't try to make yourself out to be something you're not, your best chance of getting in is being yourself. Show that you work well in a group environment, show that you're open to different cultures, mediums & genres. Just remember, these are questions designed to find out who you are, how difficult could that be?

Andreya Triana -
Main and only piece of advice is to really put your heart and soul into your application, send them music you love and don't feel you need to have a finished polished cd of music!! (I sent some scrappy home made recordings and a few collabs). It's not your bulk standard application and can be as fun as you want to make it. I personally really enjoyed it, it gave me the chance to get the coloring pencils out and all my old mixtapes (which in turn bought back alot of great memories). They won't give you any feedback due to the amount of applications they get but they are great people and if they think you're right for the academy they'll be able to spot it a mile off. So just show them the best you can what you do and hope for the best!

Kidkanevil -
It's an epic form so the main thing is to give yourself a good amount of time to do it. Try get a free day just to get really into it. Think about your answers properly but enjoy it, the questions are pretty fun, its not like doing your tax return or whatever! It's not a performance so don't act like your the shit, just be honest and genuine. They're super clued up, so you're not pitching yourself like you're applying for funding or some shit, it's more like chatting to fellow music geeks. Yeah, cool. Good luck yoOoOoOo!!!

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